New Year... New pension return season for GP’s

What forms need submitting?

1. Type 1 pension form for 2022/23 – this is for partners in GP Practices and reconciles back to the accounts and tax returns. This year is more complicated in England & Wales as the pension tier rates changed in October 2022, so the profits need apportioning correctly.
2. Type 2 pension form for 2022/23 – this is for GP’s who have a salaried post and records pensionable income from all sources. Again, care needs to be taken as the income needs to be split into two periods in England and Wales.
3. Pension Estimate form for 2024/25 – GP practices need to estimate the pensionable income in 2024/25 for both the partners and salaried GP’s they employ. This is needed so that contributions can be deducted on a monthly basis from the practice. It can be difficult to estimate especially not knowing what the GP contract income will look like, but best estimates need to be included including up to date salaries for GP partners.

The deadline for submissions this year is 31 March 2024 in England and Wales and 29 February 2024 in Scotland.

What problems occur?

Before a pension record can be updated the annual GP pension forms need to be processed by PCSE or the SPPA. There are a number of reasons why this does not always happen including;

• Forms have not been submitted or not processed for all years.  This stops a forecast being available that is up to date
• Issues with work outside of the core GP contract work e.g. out of hours, appraisal or CCG/ICB work lead to pension records not matching amounts that people have earned
• Changes in the contributions taken after a financial year end but then backdated leads to pension forms not matching what has been recorded as having been paid
• Issues with locum form submissions
• Leavers and joiners need to be set up properly on the PCSE system before pension forms can be processed. This also includes changing roles from Salaried to Partner or vice versa.
• For 2022/23 apportioning income between periods will also be an issue in England and Wales.

Whilst processes have been tightened in recent years many GP’s still have problems.

Our specialist team though are on hand to guide practices and individuals through the complex submissions including guidance about how to online file using PCSE’s portal. 

Are your pension records up to date for previous years?

Access to up to date pension records has remained difficult for many GP’s over the past few years in England and Wales.  Now more than ever individuals need to have an up to date records so they can plan their finances but also ensure that information required to rectify pension annual allowance calculations and rollback of pension records as part of the McCloud rectification is provided in a timely manner.

Pension record update assistance – England and Wales

Where we have access to your pension returns we can assist in getting things up to date through our new dedicated pension record update service. This will help you identify missing years and look at filling the gaps either through resubmitting forms for processing, identifying where blockages exist or if returns have been missed entirely assisting with producing and submitting those for the missing years.

Get in touch

If you require any assistance with this and further information on this service please contact your normal healthcare contact.

Contact us